On this day in 1898, Norris Wright Cuney, politician, died in San Antonio. Born to a white planter father, Philip Minor Cuney, and a slave mother, Adeline Stuart, in 1846 near Hempstead, Texas, Cuney...(Read More)

Contribute to TSHA
Today!

TSHA Portal to Texas History Archives

ELMDALE, TX

ELMDALE, TEXAS. Elmdale was on the Missouri Pacific Railroad and Farm Road 18 in northeastern Taylor County. It began as a stop on the Texas and Pacific Railway in the early 1880s. According to some sources, early travelers saw a mirage of elm trees at the site and called it Elmdale; other sources claim there actually were elms there in the early years of settlement. A one-room school building was erected in Elmdale in 1895, and by 1902 the school had thirty-six pupils and one teacher. Baptist, Methodist, and Church of Christ congregations met in the school. A post office was opened in the community in 1905, and by 1914 Elmdale had a population of twenty, a grocery store, and a general store. In 1919 the old plank school was replaced by a new brick building. A Baptist church was built in 1924, and a larger building was constructed in the 1930s. The post office closed in 1927, and by 1940 the community consisted of the church, the school, one business, and a number of scattered dwellings. The school closed after a fire in 1969. By the 1980s the site was within the Abilene city limits. In 2000 the population was fifty.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Juanita Daniel Zachry, A History of Rural Taylor County (Burnet, Texas: Nortex, 1980).